Sugar and Sunshine

I am going to try to do a small post every day or two to work out this sharing muscle again. I want to do it more, but it’s been difficult to tap back in, and I’m hopeful this will help. It may be as simple as a farmy photo-of-the-day, or a brief update on a project. You never know, I may get swept up in it all and write the long cathartic posts that I used to. Stranger things have happened.

The quick updates are:

Asa turned 8 at the end of July. Vera is 10 and a half. We have a lot of fun together. They are smart and interesting and I genuinely enjoy my little family. Both kids are tall and lanky and will almost certainly surpass me in height. It’s a weird and great place to be, as a mother. They like to gloat about it, staring up at me with a hand slicing through the air from the top of their head to somewhere on me, always at a slightly upward angle… I tell them to chill out, sometimes while pretending to strain as I gently push down on their heads. They will get there, and soon. I remember wanting to grow up too. It’s sweet, and humbling, and I think about how I really don’t know much about anything- sometimes I feel as though all I can do for them is love them deeply and thoroughly, try to be patient and show them it’s okay to be wrong, and make them some good food every day. I have so much more to share about my kids. I will likely say more soon, but these days they insist I get their permission about the more intimate details of their lives before sharing, which is a bummer but I completely respect it. The “kidisms” still flow steadily and hilariously in the privacy of the moment.

My annual garden started slow because of lack of fencing and critters decimating everything. It has since recovered and is going nuts, even if it’s all coming in a bit later than expected. I have tomatoes, squash, flowers, cardoon, green beans, eggplant, potatoes, herbs, scallions, ground cherries, tomatillos, kale and mustard, peppers. Oh and all the garlic I’ll need for the whole year, plus enough to plant. Plenty to play with and store. I’m also making a sincere effort to have a good fall and winter garden, as well as working on all the mulching that needs doing. It’s making a difference. Each year will be better than the last. The things I’m noticing that are even more gratifying than the aesthetics or the yields are the quality of some of the garden beds after just two seasons. No-till is my jam. I can pull out pokeweed, with the whole root intact, smoothly out of those beds. Anywhere else it breaks and is impossible to get out without digging. Like butter, those beds.

I turned 34 last week and Jeff and I celebrated 13 years on Monday. Time and stuff! We really were just babies, but I’m so, so grateful. His hair is thinning up top and mine is sparkling with plenty of gray. We talk about how nice it is to change with someone you feel safe with… with someone who knows you, like my dad always says, as “the sum of all your parts”. I found a picture from our last anniversary, and it just made me smile. That’s my guy. <3

Otherwise, everything grows. It’s a vibrant time of year. Baby ducks aren’t so baby. Pigs are getting big. My favorite thing about them is that every time they see me they pop up and hurry over hoping for food, and their funny little ears flop as they come. We harvested our old rooster Rogers and traded him for a younger Buff Orpington (and a much nicer roo, I must say). So now we have “Sugar” (our white Cochin) and “Sunshine”. The rabbits are great and easy and the system is getting established, slowly but surely. I’ll do a whole update about that soon.

“Her body moved with the frankness that comes from solitary habits. But solitude is only a human presumption. Every quiet step is thunder to beetle life underfoot; every choice is a world made new for the chosen. All secrets are witnessed.” (Barbara Kingsolver)